Seeing that the only person who can change the suckiness of the posting around here is our absentee landlord, (the remaining Admins not having access to the operating software), and the footnote at the bottom of each page shows that we are still suffering under an outdated version of the forum software:

Then jumping to a conclusion was evidently premature, as it would be for me to assume that it was your suckiness as a poster that resulted in the failure to launch the YT video. As you can see from failed attempt to successful attempt it was the video address that caused the problem, not the forum software or your ineptness. YouTube has changed the "share" address for videos into a shortened youtu.be address that the archaic forum engine does not recognise. It's not our fault, and it is very unlikely that it will be corrected any time soon. Like it or lump it.

This is one of the most ignorant articles I've read recently on public education, masquerading as journalism.

Sorry Rob, but can you be a little more specific as to what your beef is with the reporting. How is she ignorant and how is she masquerading as a journalist?

I don't have much time (I'm 30 years old and about to play Magic: The Gathering for the first time, so I'm building my deck ), but I can try to summarize.

-Saying that homeschoolers "benefit" from the administrative services of the state, et al. and should therefore help finance it is absurd. These "administrative services" are bureaucratic regulations- not true services (if the students use the offerred extracurricular activities, then I would argue that's a separate matter, but I surmise that most homeschoolers do not).

-To say that Thomas Jefferson "loudly championed the idea of public school system paid for by tax dollars" is anachronistic and misleading; the Jeffersonian vision looked remarkably nothing like what we have now. Indeed, Jefferson wrote, "Were those schools to be established on the public funds and to be managed by the Governor and council or the commissioners of the Literary fund brick houses to be built for the schools and teachers high wages and subsistence given them they would be badly managed depraved by abuses and would exhaust the whole Literary fund." He also opposed compulsory attendance (although he favored the notion that voting be a privilege of the literate).

-The author's use of the statistic
about how much money is spent on (one-tenth of) high school dropouts makes some bold assumptions and omits important details. The US
spends approximately $10,500 per pupil per year. Over the course of
thirteen years, providing a student did not repeat a grade, the cost to
" educate" the average pupil in the US is $136,500. Never mind that a dropout has already been through ten years or more of (usually) public school. In the public forum, the quality of public education is always tied to the amount of money pumped into the system, but it seems to me that stewardship is a forgotten virtue. I have seen students graduate who cannot read
the word "guarantee" or construct a complete sentence. That is not the consequence of poor funding. It is unfortunate that an education is now synonymous with a diploma.

This is one of the most ignorant articles I've read recently on public education, masquerading as journalism.

Sorry Rob, but can you be a little more specific as to what your beef is with the reporting. How is she ignorant and how is she masquerading as a journalist?

I don't have much time (I'm 30 years old and about to play Magic: The Gathering for the first time, so I'm building my deck ), but I can try to summarize.

-Saying that homeschoolers "benefit" from the administrative services of the state, et al. and should therefore help finance it is absurd. These "administrative services" are bureaucratic regulations- not true services (if the students use the offerred extracurricular activities, then I would argue that's a separate matter, but I surmise that most homeschoolers do not).

-To say that Thomas Jefferson "loudly championed the idea of public school system paid for by tax dollars" is anachronistic and misleading; the Jeffersonian vision looked remarkably nothing like what we have now. Indeed, Jefferson wrote, "Were those schools to be established on the public funds and to be managed by the Governor and council or the commissioners of the Literary fund brick houses to be built for the schools and teachers high wages and subsistence given them they would be badly managed depraved by abuses and would exhaust the whole Literary fund." He also opposed compulsory attendance (although he favored the notion that voting be a privilege of the literate).

-The author's use of the statistic about how much money is spent on (one-tenth of) high school dropouts makes some bold assumptions and omits important details. The US spends approximately $10,500 per pupil per year. Over the course of thirteen years, providing a student did not repeat a grade, the cost to " educate" the average pupil in the US is $136,500. Never mind that a dropout has already been through ten years or more of (usually) public school. In the public forum, the quality of public education is always tied to the amount of money pumped into the system, but it seems to me that stewardship is a forgotten virtue. I have seen students graduate who cannot read the word "guarantee" or construct a complete sentence. That is not the consequence of poor funding. It is unfortunate that an education is now synonymous with a diploma.

That's fair enough - you disagree with what she said. I still don't see why it was ignorant and masquerading as journalism, but hey-ho.

Why are pupils who cannot read the word "guarantee" or construct a complete sentence graduating and why is this a failure of the system rather than the teachers? Also, how would a change in stewardship or home schooling benefit those particular students?

Yeah like many things the public school system seems skewed with income, mo money seems to equate to better schools, and considering there is a similar correlation with income and test results and etc that should be no surprise.

I think the public education system, itself, is not really the problem. What is the problem? God I have no idea, but I fail to see how privatizing or anything like that would improve it.

Needless to say things like NCLB are worthless at best, harmful at worst.

Public and Congress quite undecided on Syria atm but Obama is pushing full steam ahead to sway us all. It is ironic that for such a weak President that has either moderated too much for leftires let others take over entirely ("his" health bill) he's been so gung ho about this.

Edited by JJLehto - September 09 2013 at 10:08

"It's fine, luckily we're all English so no one will ask any questions. Thank you centuries of emotional repression."

There are millions of children who came through the public school system who went on to be productive and intelligent. Of course there are some failures as would be expected.

Of course. That wasn't my argument. $10k+ per student per year and "14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics," shows, in my opinion, an abysmal use of money taken from people who earned it.

There are millions of children who came through the public school system who went on to be productive and intelligent. Of course there are some failures as would be expected.

Of course. That wasn't my argument. $10k+ per student per year and "14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics," shows, in my opinion, an abysmal use of money taken from people who earned it.

At $10,000 that's only about $55 a day based on 9 months and 5 days a week....not a huge amount to educate someone when you think about it and why should America rank number 1 or even in the top 10..? because we are rich and America..? What makes us think we are so much smarter or better than any other system at educating?

Perhaps the problem is the 'public' and not the schools themselves? Or maybe we should look at how education is done in those nations that rank higher and not blame public schools or so-called private schools but try to figure out what they are doing better.

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